Sleep Awakenihgs

[RWhipkey]

First, some background.  I am a 68 year old male who is one month into APAP therapy.  Five years ago, I was diagnosed with BPH; my urologist and I have agreed to manage it rather than undergo surgery.  Mostly this involves not drinking anything in the evening, and has been fairly successful.  Most nights I'm awakened with the urge to urinate at least once and often 2 or even 3 times.  I suspect I've had BPH symptons for quite some time as I have done this for many years.  I usually quickly fall back to sleep.

On somewhat of a regular basis (several nights a month) however, I may be up 7 or more times and I do have the urge to urinate each time.  In fact, its what led my GP to reccommend a sleep study when I mentioned this to him, as he contended that BPH would not cause me to awaken that often.  He said that I am waking up for a diffrent reason on at least these occasions, and once awake, feel the urge to urinate when I would have slept through it.

Being new to CPAP therapy, I'm making progress, but hope for increasing benefits as I progress.  Since I've been on APAP, I awaken only once or twice, so my SleepyHead stats are broken into  2 or three sessions. When I awaken I do feel the urge to and do urinate.  This already seems to be an improvement.

My question is this.  Can I expect awakenings to diminish over time, or will the BPH pattern of 2 or 3 awakenings probably continue?  Also, the "sessions" can have very different AHI results. Is thre anything I can do further to minimize the "sessions" or make them all productive?  As I get used to APAP, I can fall back to sleep rather quickly as I did before CPAP therapy. 

I welcome any insight and advice that anyone can offer.

[Piggles]

I can't comment on the BPH issues.

If you install SleepyHead (or already have it installed) and can post some data from your productive and non-productive nights, it will be much easier for you to get help.

I believe a lot of people are going to say that your pressure of 5 is going to be too low for the dreamstation to effectively treat your apnea. The dreamstation is a bit slow to respond to events so having the lower limit of your pressure higher will allow it to prevent and/or respond to events a bit quicker. Data will help confirm that.

Edit: Ah I see you are already being helped on pressures in another thread and your profile hasn't been updated. Carry on and good luck!

[RWhipkey]

Thanks Piggles

I know that my profile says 5-20 pressure.  I did try to change that, but when I access my profile, I can't find where I can update the pressure settings.

The kind folks on this forum have helped me al lot with settings and therapy is improving. The issue I've introduced above seems to me to be a different one, so I started a new thread.

[Crimson Nape]

UserCP (upper screen right) ->Lower left Edit Profile->Pressure

[car54]

From what I understand, if you are sleeping your body is producing less urine. I would think that if cpap is causing you to sleep better you might have less bathroom stops.

I used to have 2 to 3 and now many times I am at zero.

[chill]

You will probably find that your sleep patterns and AHI will slowly change over the first year, maybe more.  And it won't always be in the direction that you want.  Your body and brain have a lot of readjusting to do and that simply takes time.  Before I started on CPAP, I would be up and in the washroom every 90 minutes or so.  Now most nights it is once or not at all.  I think I slept nine straight hours last night.  

Based on your other posts, I think you can expect this to improve some, but I have no experience with BPH.

[RWhipkey]

Car54 and Chill

Thanks for sharing your experiences; they give me hope.  I think the apnea may be more the cause than BPH.  Actually, the urologist that diagnosed BPH only had one solution - surgery.  When I demurred he handed me off to a young PA who said he didn't think I should have the surgery. I sought a second opinion from a urologist who was accredited to do the same cutting-edge greenlight laser surgery.  He did a cystoscope (the first didn't even do that) and said he wouldn't recommend surgery, that the prostate  wasn't all that large. That's why he recommended  "management" by lifestyle changes.  I have to see a new urolgist as he had to retire due to a life threatening health condition. I'll let the new one know about the apnea treatment.

[Cranberry Ray]

RW, have to agree with others that have posted so far. Used to get up 2-3 times a night and now the norm is to sleep all night and only occasionally get up once a night. The body produces certain hormones when you are in REM sleep and one of those suppresses the urge to urinate. The better sleep you get the less you should have to go. I Googled this topic and found some very interesting info when I first started to notice the benefit. 

As far as having different results in various sessions during the night. According to most sleep experts you tend to achieve REM more frequently and for longer periods later in the night. For the first half of the night we normally run through stages 1-3 with only occasional REM. 2nd half normally produces more REM which may explain why your numbers are different during particular windows at night. I've only been on APAP for about 2 1/2 months and can notice improvements daily. Sleep study showed AHI of 26 and not very good sleep. Last night I was at AHI 0.28 and slept 7 hours with no awakenings. I love my APAP and would never think about missing a night now.

Hope you continue to see good results!

[RWhipkey]

Cranberry

Thanks for commenting.  This is what is great about this community; one finds out that his/her experience is not so unusual and members like you cheer them on.  Thanks again.